


Charmer

by smirc



Category: game of thrones
Genre: AU, Astapor, F/F, F/M, wonky timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirc/pseuds/smirc
Summary: Daenerys Targaryen met Arya Stark in the sands of Astapor, playing games with snakes.





	1. Astapor

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve no idea how Arya wound up in Astapor, but in this story she’s there at around age eleven, so if we go according to the book ages and follow the show timeline, it’s been two/three years since Ned was beheaded and about the same since Drogo was poisoned by Mirri Maz Duur. Daenerys would be around, what? Sixteen? We’ll go with sixteen.
> 
> This is just a little warm-up to get me back into GoT/ASoIaF. The writing style makes me feel a bit like a poser but it was fun to try.

Daenerys Targaryen met Arya Stark in the sands of Astapor, playing games with snakes. The future queen had no knowledge of Arya’s identity—she couldn’t even tell that the girl was, in fact, a girl—all Daenerys saw was a dirty boy with a fringe of dark hair that hung over his eyes, so rich and grey they must have been the same color as valyrian steel. He lay on his stomach in the sand, palms flat, his eyes affixed to those that opposed him; the unblinking eyes of a beautiful cobra. Cream scales wove and blended with green and silver. They shifted, broadening and flattening with the hypnotic movements of the snake’s body as it examined the boy from all angles. Together their heads weaved, always opposing, their eyes forever locked.

Jorah and Ser Barristan stood before each of Daenerys’ shoulders, her defense against the snake. Daenerys passed them with ease, and ignored how they tensed. She stopped to stand at the boy’s hip.

“What are you doing?”

The boy didn’t appear to have heard her, and continued to trade gazes with the snake. _‘Perhaps he is deaf?’_ Daenerys thought. Though she could see few white scars against the tan skin of the boy’s back, she knew that scars could be hidden, and a spike to the ear would render a slave deaf without anyone the wiser—a good practice for a Master with many secrets, though it seemed simpler to rid a slave of their tongue. It was disheartening, how much she’d learned about the horrors of the practice. The boy had removed his collar of black leather, and he bore the same paleness around his throat that every other slave did; a reminder set into his flesh. 

“I found him interesting.”

 _‘Not deaf then,’_ Daenerys noted. Her lips perked in the smallest of smiles. _‘Only focused.’_

“And what secrets have you uncovered in the eyes of your friend?”

“Nothing, really.” The boy spoke with an accent similar to Jorah’s and Ser Barristan’s, only with a higher pitch and breathy vowels. Young. Scrawny and young like nearly every boy who would march with her and her Unsullied. “But it’s not about learning secrets.”

“What is it about, then?”

“Fear.”

Daenerys quirked a brow. “Fear?”

“Fear cuts deeper than swords,” the boy remarked, rising with the power of his thin arms to lift his chest from the sand. The snake rose with him, mirroring his every waver. “If I can master my fear, I could be more dangerous than your Unsullied.”

Daenerys’ smile bloomed and became full. She gazed down at the boy with an infantile sense of fondness. “That’s your plan then? To charm snakes and master your fear?”

The boy didn’t respond, and Daenerys found herself staring into the cloudy eyes of the cobra. It was not focused on her in kind. It slithered forward, head high, going straight for the boy who seemed frozen. The queen advanced instinctively, and so did her loyal guards, but all the cobra did was curl itself many times around the boy’s neck.

“Yes.” The boy rose to stand and faced Daenerys. His grey eyes were dark, beautiful steel, and the snake’s own were no longer cloudy. “I’ll try.”


	2. Yunkai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The near-gelding of Daario Naharis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short and kinda shitty, but I was getting nowhere with the rewrites.

Daenerys found Arry to be many things: _sweet_ when he was determined to scowl as Missandei wiped dirt from his cheek; _awkward_ with his penchant for spending more time conversing with horses and other beasts than he did his own kind; _loyal_ when he sneered at Razdal mo Eraz, turning up his nose when the _Wise Master_ dared to suggest that Daenerys was forcing him to grow in a foreign land and fight unnecessary foreign wars; and _brave_ , when he snuck into her tent to press a dagger between Daario Naharis’ legs. The man himself had snuck into her camp, posed as one of her Unsullied, held a knife to Missandei’s neck, and tiny, watchful Arry had slithered between the tent posts with all the efficiency of his snake to hold the mercenary hostage for her. Any slip of the hand, purposeful or not, and there would be little anyone could do to save Daario’s life—and he knew it.

“That sack there,” Daenerys tilted her head in it’s direction, “it’s red with blood. Have you killed my Unsullied, Daario Naharis? Did you think their heads would make me afraid?”

“I assure you, I never harmed a single one of your Unsullied.” Daario dropped his precious dagger in the sand and, with slow movements, lifted the sack from his belt and emptied the heads of his fellow commanders onto the floor. “Only those that would harm _you_.”

Unfazed, Daenerys quirked a brow, expression expectant but otherwise neutral. She was naked, submerged in water that frothed white with expensive soap and scented oils, and yet she behaved as though she were a knight in full plate; a queen in the finest gown upon the finest throne. 

Was she not a queen? Was she not protected? Did she not hold all the power?

“And what do you hope to earn from this… _display_?” Daenerys kept her expression neutral, even as Arry’s serpentine companion wound its way up Daario’s leg, hissing lowly. Her confidence would be belied only by her stoicism, if it was at all. “Do be careful, Daario Naharis. Cobras have a tendency to spit a truly awful venom, and it wouldn’t do to have you die in such a way. How would I send your Second Sons a message if they could not watch you die in person?”

“You would kill me, when I should be rewarded?”

The hissing grew louder. The cobra’s eyes were cloudy. _‘Curious.’_

Daenerys lifted her arms to rest on the sides of the tub, stretching her spine and rolling her shoulders. She was intrigued. “What reward would you ask of me?”

Daario smiled, wide and smug and eager. “Let me serve you.”

Arry’s snake had climbed up to glare at Daario’s profile. It’s mouth parted, long fangs horrifying. At Daenerys’ command, “ _keligon_ ,” its mouth closed and it fell away, long body extending from Daario’s to Arry’s without ever touching the floor.

Such a clever serpent. 

Daenerys made brief eye contact with Arry, who hadn’t wavered an inch. One word, and the mercenary would fall to the sand with his most precious parts gored beyond repair. Such loyalty made her breath deepen and her nostrils flare. The Queen focused again on Daario.

He had saved her a great deal of trouble. Killing him would only invite more. 

“Make your oath, Daario Naharis, and then leave my presence.”

-

“What do you think of him? Of Daario?” 

Daenerys examined Arry’s profile, lit by the early morning sun. He was dirty again, but the queen wouldn’t push him away by trying to clean the filth on his cheek. The boy fought with anyone who tried to do anything for him in the vein of mothering. 

Arry huffed faintly upwards, disrupting the lengthy bangs that had begun to hang over his eyes. “I’ve never met a man who fought for _beauty_ , Your Grace.”

”Daenerys,” the Queen corrected gently. Sometimes it was a relief to hear her own name outside of the jumble of her titles. 

”I’ve never met a man who fought for beauty, _Daenerys_. But he’s made your mission easier: Yunkai is yours, and Meereen isn’t far.” Arry tilted his head, thoughtful and quiet as his snake, Qiro, rose to settle the uppermost part of her body on top of his head. “Though I wonder, what happens after Meereen?”

Daenerys accepted the reins to her gelding from Ser Barristan in silence. She cast Arry a look of indecisiveness before swinging up into the saddle. In truth, she had no idea. 

’ _What **will** happen after Meereen?’_

 


	3. Meereen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To obey was to not be Arry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Found an excerpt from the bowels of my google drive that adds some more Daario and Arya stuff, as well as a bit from Danaerys’ perspective. 
> 
> -
> 
> OLD (but still applies): Also, sorry for the long ass wait. I’m a mess lmao.

The moment Daario emerged from the dust cloud, champion blood on his arakh and horse blood on his precious dagger, Daenerys knew he had won Arry’s good favor. She could see the awe in the boy’s eyes and the faint part of his lips. Soon perhaps it would morph into a form of hero worship, but at the very least, Arry had a role model other than Grey Worm.

Daenerys was unsure if that was a good thing.

-

Over the course of a single night, Meereen was hers. Dragon banners hung from every pyramid, but none was greater than the one that shrouded the golden harpy atop the Great Pyramid, concealing all but it’s crown from view with black cloth and red stitching.

Slave collars were replaced by cheap bronze torcs to hold up the clothes of freedmen. They had worn them so long and hardly removed them at all before that day, and Daenerys could see evidence of this in the discoloration of their necks. It reminded her of Arry, so long ago in Astapor, and all of her children that marched with them from city to city, chanting _Mhysa_ and searching for joy in the world. 

Tables were set inside and outside, ornate tablecloths discarded, all of them laden with the food the Masters had once hoarded for themselves. Persimmon wine and honeyed mead were available in tankers as big around as Daenerys’ torso, and the freedmen dunked their cups inside instead of laboring to pour it. A thousand lambs and four thousand chickens had been slain and set to roast as the sun rose, basted with honey and milk infused with a dozen expensive spices. From noon onward the freedmen celebrated, feasting and drinking and roaming the markets they had once only entered as porters. 

The crucified Masters were readily ignored; not even the curious children paused to stare.

-

“Missandei, where is Arry? And Daario?”

The Queen walked between the dozens of tables that interrupted Meereen’s streets, declining wine and mead and rum and a whole assortment of foods that her subjects offered her eagerly as she passed. Ser Barristan and Jorah walked just behind each of her shoulders, their hands tense on their swords.

“It is my understanding that Daario took Arry to the markets. They were talking about a smith who sells white daggers and a tavern that brews a special spiced rum.”

Daenerys sighed. “Of course.”

-

_Months later..._

-

“You want to _what_?”

“Arry needs be out in the field, hacking and slashing with the rest of the Second Sons so he knows what it’s like to be at war.”

Daenerys would not see Arry in pearl grey armor like her Unsullied, or in layers of leather and horsehair like Daario and the Dothraki. 

“He is well aware of what it is like at war.”

“He has never _fought_ in a war.” Daario sighed, looking out of the glassless windows that lined the uppermost part of the walls in the throne room. The Great Pyramid was vast and lavish with chiseled designs, all squares within squares; some hollow, all stacked and bulging from every surface except the floor. “My Queen, what do you expect him to become? Your scribe? Shall he be your cupbearer, or are you teaching him High Valyrian so that he can read you poetry at supper?”

‘ _He has become too familiar._ ’ Daenerys tilted her chin up just a fraction. Daario wasn’t far below, having advanced up the steps to be closer to her. He was always trying to get close.

“Arry will not travel with the Second Sons to retake Yunkai, and that is final.”

Daario’s nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, but he nodded in understanding all the same.

The Queen had not seen Arry peeking his head out from the hall behind her stone throne, or how he made burning eye contact with Daario before ducking away and into the darkness.

-

_Long past nightfall..._

-

“I told you that you were to remain in Meereen, yet there you were, creeping through the streets like a wanted man in the dead of night.”

Daenerys’ tone was forcefully even, but tremors of her anger broke through at every vowel and honed every consonant to a sharp edge. Arry was determined to keep a straight face.

“I swore no oaths—”

Daenerys rounded on Arry, hands clenched into fists. Her amethyst eyes were dark with her upset. “You should not be speaking at all and you should _never_ play that game with me. You might as well have sworn a _thousand_ oaths because you are one of my people and you _will_ obey my commands.”

Outwardly Arry was stone, unmoving. Inwardly, he was a mess of anger and defiance. While a part of him knew, rationally, that he was the Queen’s vassal and subject to her command, the larger rest of him reared its ugly head in a fit of rage at the thought of _anyone_ telling him what to do. Missandei ordering him to wash behind his ears was one thing, but the Queen was interfering with his training.

It was maddening. How could the Queen expect him to stay behind, crouched behind her silken skirts like a frightened boy? He’d killed men multiple times in the past, but battle—raiding and close quarter combat in the midst of a sea of enemies—was something he had yet to experience, and he wanted to badly. 

When Arry thought the Queen would continue, she seemed to deflate. She straightened, breathing even, and stared at Arry with a look that brokered no argument. “I will not continue this tonight. Rest. We will talk in the morning, after breakfast.”

‘ _I won’t be here for breakfast._ ’

“Yes, my Queen.”

Once Daenerys had departed, Arry made for the balcony.

As smooth as the stones were, there were still gaps between every row of marble and sandstone. Arry wedged the bare ends of his sandals and the tips of his fingers into them, climbing higher and higher until he made it to the tall, golden harpy statue that rested at the Great Pyramid’s tip. The war room was directly beneath it, and beneath that the Queen’s chambers. With luck Arry would get away without being seen nor heard.

Drogon would obey none but Daenerys, and Rhaegal was an ornery bastard, but Viserion… Viserion was sweet—at least to Arry. The cream colored creature had taken a liking to sitting on Arry’s shoulders, but now that he was larger, perhaps their roles could switch. The dragon turned to him whenever he whistled, and on a rare occasion would take hunks of steak from Arry’s hand with a careful snap of his teeth. They were friends, or as much as a young man and a dragon could manage to be. 

Arry scaled the harpy and stood within the circle of its crown, sandals in dried and wet bird shit mixed with dirt and leaves. She waved her arms, praying that none on the ground caught sight of her.

In the distance, Viserion took notice. His silhouette looked bulky that night, but with the moon hidden away and the sky so dark, nothing was exact, least of all the silhouette of a dragon. 

‘ _Wait… that’s not—_ ’ Arry bit clean through his tongue when Rhaegal swooped down, a foot bearing sharp ivory talons swatting at his body and knocking him from the harpy’s crown. It was either fall to his death or cling to the dragon’s ankle, and Arry wasn’t keen on dying just yet.

Mouth full of blood, fresh cuts on his sides from Rhaegal’s talons, Arry had one thought. 

‘ _She’s going to be furious.’_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going really fast, and there’s been minimal Daenerys/Arya interaction with a lot of substance, I think. Y’all probably won’t get that for a hot minute, but I’m thinking, since these are so goddamn short, that I’ll do some longer, general overview chapters and then have some time skips. Who knows?


	4. Braavos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fallen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHE LIVES. 
> 
> I’m sorry for the massive hiatus. This story needs a lot of work, and I’m going to start giving it attention again.

A great green beast was seen flying over Qohor come sunrise, and every spear and arrow Unsullied slave-soldiers sent its way always fell short by a thousand feet. The people screamed and stumbled over one another, ducking into their homes and shops in the market. A mother, in her fear, pulled herself and her  children into a brothel out of sheer desperation. No one in Qohor had seen a dragon in centuries. 

Learned boys, privileged and skilled, ran along the outskirts of the city, their tutors frantic behind them with spy-glasses in hand. They had spotted the beast from their vantage point in one of their father’s palace gardens, and quickly abandoned their studies in favor of excited pursuit. 

“It’s carrying something!” one boy howled.

“A person!” another cried.

“They’re dead now,” one tutor, out of breath, assured their pupil. Large hands fell to the boy’s thin shoulders, slowly muscling him around towards the city. “Poor boy will be the monster’s meal. If you study, and listen when I speak, the same will not happen to _you_.”

-

Arry had lost consciousness within the first hour of travel. He returned to the realm of the living just as a massive, horrifying horn blared far too close to his ear. 

His eyes opened, and he screamed.

A thousand feet below, where the air wasn’t freezing, the Arsenal of Braavos had congregated on the seas before the Secret City. Ships cut through the lagoons and deeper water like a blade through soft fat, sailing into a formation that was blurry to Arry. He could tell that it was Braavos by the great Titan that stood atop two long stretches of land thick with pine trees. He’d seen drawings of it in history books and heard tales of its massive size and broken longsword back when he was a girl and his name was Arya.

He fell towards it soon enough, like a seagull diving for fish, when Rhaegal dropped him.

“ _YOU RAT BASTARD!_ ” Arry howled, legs kicking and arms spinning as he descended in a horrifying free fall. The world became a blur of powder blue and green-grey stone as he flipped head over heels over and over again. His heart and stomach both fled his torso and climbed into his throat, acting as a stopper for his lungs, leaving him breathless and panicking.

There was no way to prepare for a fall like that.

There was no way to prepare for the cruelty of a mad dragon.

_‘Curse you, you winged bastard.’_

With a helpless croak and a loud _boom!_ of a splash, Arry slammed into the water. As he stared at the fading light of the noon sun, blurred by the brackish water, his eyes closed against his will once more.

-

_Three days later…_

-

Someone was slapping at her face. It was a gentle, irritating sort of slap, meant to rouse and not to punish. 

“Oi, girl!” More slapping. The accented voice was thick and vaguely familiar. Arya could feel something old and strong reviving in her chest, and a smile, small and weak, came unbidden. She swore Syrio was with her; she could smell his cologne, his cured leathers, his billowing silk shirts and the scent of their combined sweat as they sparred for hours on end in the Red Keep. The thought of him made her feel strong—strong enough to try and sit up.

A large hand slapped against her collarbone, pushing her flat on the bed.

“You bind your breasts too tight for too long, you fall from dragon claws and you crack your ribs and yet you try and sit? Foolish girl. Be still, before I tie you to this bed and let my wife coddle you. She is worse than I, you must know, like all mothers are with children—any children at all. So be still, or Yaesara will come and torture you.”

Somewhere far away, Arya heard a woman with a rich voice order the man to be quiet.

Some of their speech was foreign to her, but the Braavosi was a bastard dialect born from High Valyrian. Arya could extrapolate based on her knowledge of that language and the little she had gleaned from Missandei during her studies. 

Some of it had been language studies, the rest cultural and political. 

_“The Braavosi could be a fearsome enemy to our Queen. They despise dragons and Targaryens as if they were the same in all ways, and may seek to kill Daenerys with the same tenacity they might Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal.”_

_Arry had tightened his grip on his Braavosi blade. “I’d—”_

_“Though I’m sure you grew up listening to poetic tales of bloody battles, grand victories and gluttonous celebrations, diplomacy can be superior to swordplay—especially when we are outnumbered and outmatched. Learn to speak instead of strike, and you might serve our Queen better than Daario or Jorah could ever dream of.”_

Arya remained calm. She didn’t flinch when the man clasped one of her hands between his own. His were rough and thick with callouses, just like her father’s—and Jon’s. The cologne he wore was nothing but the salt of the sea and his own sweat, but there was something deeper there that kept the memory of Syrio alive in her senses.

“Rest and heal. Nysir Ronal will let no harm come to you.” He patted the back of her hand. “Welcome to Braavos, child. Nowhere else will you be safer.”

_‘You’re wrong,’_ Arya thought, stomach tight as the pain of her ribs began to increase. _‘I slept in a den of dragons and freedmen, and none could have harmed me.’_

Nysir fed her water from a stout clay mug, without handles and riddled with the smudged fingerprints of its maker. She drank slowly, every swallow a sting on her healing tongue and a stabbing pain in her wounded torso. 

_‘But coddled girls don’t make warriors. They make princesses.’_

_‘I will not be a princess. Princesses die.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters will likely be lengthened in the future, with some being combined as well. It’s just a matter of getting down to it. 
> 
> Also? New season starts tonight!


End file.
